Q&A with Marietta Rodriguez, NeighborWorks America CEO

I first joined NeighborWorks in a regional office in Denver, Colorado. It was one of the last in our region that was formed as a stand-alone nonprofit created from scratch as we pivoted our model in the mid-90s and began affiliating with existing organizations.

Over the years, while the size of the network hasn’t necessarily grown by number of organizations, the organizations themselves have grown in scale and complexity—not only the number of customers they serve, but also geographically. While some organizations still work in certain neighborhoods, we’re more apt to work citywide, countywide and regionwide now, both because we have the capacity and because of the demand for services.

That structure change coincided with a lot of growth in the mid-90s when we expanded our national programmatic expertise and really started to focus on national initiatives like promoting home ownership and developing multifamily or rental properties. In the early 2000s we again adapted by adding rural programmatic support.

More recently, since the mid-2000s to present (Eden Housing joined in 2015), we’ve seen Congress use NeighborWorks to get grant money out to communities quickly, taking advantage of the infrastructure we have in place that can manage grant programs on a large scale. For example, during the foreclosure crisis in 2008, we had over 10 appropriations of foreclosure intervention money that totaled well over $700 million. During the American Rescue Act of 2021, they appropriated $100 million in housing counseling money for those at risk of foreclosure, eviction or homelessness due to the pandemic.

NeighborWorks acts as an intermediary, with a strong focus on delivering meaningful outputs and outcomes for both the community and the organizations we support. When we discuss impact, we view it through both of these lenses. We have nearly 250 network organizations that make up the NeighborWorks network, and we want to make sure they’re strong and resilient organizations so they can serve the needs of the residents living in their service areas.

That might sound obvious, but, for example, when there are natural disasters or times of economic crisis, communities will lean on local organizations to help them provide services and distribute money and advice, and we need to make sure they’re able to do so.

We also measure impact on an individual level, which is why we place significant emphasis on tracking outputs. For example, last year, our network provided over 100,000 families and individuals with counseling, housing and financial capability services. We awarded more than 15,000 training certificates to affordable housing and community development practitioners. Additionally, the network repaired over 11,000 homes and currently owns and manages more than 200,000 affordable rental units.

These outputs have a significant impact in the communities we serve, at a scale and depth few national organizations can reach.

We’ve seen huge growth in our Training Institute, which has been a really effective way to build capacity in the industry and help professionalize housing and community development. The first one was held in 1987 in Los Angeles with 180 practitioners participating. Today we have two in-person NeighborWorks Training Institutes each year, averaging 1,400 to 2,000 practitioners, and since the pandemic we’ve also offered a Virtual Training Institutes that usually has attendance of well over 1,200.

Our Training Institute offers more than 75 courses on a variety of topics, including board governance, nonprofit fiscal management, home ownership, promotion, real estate development, and more. At the beginning, the NeighborWorks staff served as faculty for the courses, but with the number of courses we now offer, we hired faculty that helps us develop courses and curriculum, then delivers those courses both in-person and virtually.

Another addition to our service delivery is our partnerships with various stakeholders, including regional and state housing finance agencies. These agencies support bringing courses to local communities by helping to underwrite the costs, allowing some of their nonprofit clients to participate. Or sometimes the state housing finance agencies or bank partners will pick a couple of courses they’re interested in, and we’ll offer those as a stand-alone. So there are a lot of ways we try to make the training available and accessible to various communities.

I’m excited to look back and think about all of the community and national leaders who helped shape and bring NeighborWorks to where it is today. I think about all those road warriors who were creating organizations from scratch in the beginning, and it’s amazing to see how their incredible work has evolved.

I’m also excited to think about the future because there’s still a lot more work to be done. Our mission has never been more relevant than it is today, given the affordable housing crisis and lack of inventory.  We have to recognize that the needs of communities have changed, and we’re really trying to respond to those needs. I’m proud of all the organizations working with committed residents in their communities to create lasting change.

Coming up, I’m looking forward to our annual Community Leadership Institute happening Oct. 31-Nov. 3 in Baltimore. Organizations bring teams of eight to 10 people from their community to a weekend retreat to network with other resident leaders, and then to work together on a community plan for some issue that they’ll be focusing on, such as reducing crime or dealing with vacant property. We give them a small catalytic grant to support their project. It’s incredibly powerful to be in a room with 500 resident leaders who never knew there were other people just like them working in their communities and facing the same challenges.

We are spotlighting some of the best stories and ideas from our communities in a new bimonthly podcast that I host, “The Community Effect.” Conversations center on the resilience, innovation and transformation of communications across the county. I’m excited to share that our first episode launched in early October and is available for download!

In the immediate future, I’m seeing increased attention to the environmental crisis, with money coming from the EPA and other places that housing and community development could benefit from. And finally, I’m excited about what the future holds in terms of using technology to make work more efficient.  There’s certainly lots of work to be done, and I know that NeighborWorks will be at the forefront.